Do it Yourself vs. Freelance: When to Hire an Expert

Running a blog can be a lot of work, especially when your site starts picking up speed and you have a large audience to contend with. If you’ve been in this game for a while, you will surely know how large the work volume can get, and all the different things you have to juggle: social media, coming up with content, writing posts, proofreading, formatting… the list goes on!

Luckily, there is a whole group of people out there that come in to save the day with things like this – freelancers. Freelances are independent experts in a variety of fields, and therefore there will always be someone you can rely on to get the job done. What exactly can they help with?

Proofreading

If you find yourself tight for time when you’re managing your blog, hiring a freelancer to lighten some of the load might be worth the money. The cost for proofreading jobs tends to be fairly low since there is not too much labour involved (depending on the length of the piece), and therefore it certainly pays off.

Many people tend to get complacent and skip the proofreading when they are short of time, but simple mistakes can decrease the professionalism of your site. For the sake of keeping up appearances, make sure you either proofread, or hire a freelancer to do it for you.

Regarding Spanish you may be tempted to put your English text in Google translator and go ahead. Well, I’m sorry but this doesn’t work well. If you want a high quality text in Spanish you need someone to proofread that text.

Translating

Wanting to branch out into new areas? Perhaps you want to try marketing your content or services in a different country or region, and you’re in need of the linguistic ability to do it. The solution here is simple: hire a freelancer!

There are hundreds of bilingual freelancers out there who can sufficiently translate exactly what you want to say and turn your words into a multinational advert.

Regarding English to Spanish translations, in order to be sure you are getting a good quality, check if your freelancer:

  • Do the relatives clause properly which means that in Spanish the relative clause has a different order of words than in English.
  • Don’t over use passive voice because in Spanish we usually use reflexive se instead.
  • Don’t give you a translation that is a Spanish version of the English one word by word.

Graphic Design

If you’re wanting to spice up your website or design a professional logo, try asking a freelancer to do it for you. Someone who has the skills and knows exactly what they’re doing will be a lot more capable than a beginner (i.e., you) when it comes to designing images or graphics in Photoshop.

Writing

This is a slightly different field. If your blog is quite personal, stick to writing all the content yourself. However, if it is a site used to promote goods and services, then maybe hiring a freelancer to help with some of your content might be worth it. Bear in mind, however, that there are other options when it comes to writing. For example, if you’re really struggling for content, then it might be worth looking into encouraging guest posts on your site.

If you feel that hiring a freelancer is expensive, but your texts are not good enough, I highly recommend you to look for proofreading services. It is the perfect balance between price and result.

Summary

All in all, it’s completely up to you whether to hire a freelancer or not. It is a very useful option if you feel inundated with tasks or if you don’t know how to do the wrk with a high standard, but if you feel that you can do it yourself then stick to that and make your blog totally your own. This in mind, remember that freelancers are extremely skilful and can offer you a helping hand in areas where you have little expertise, which can only improve your blog on the whole.

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